John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. Will the minister outline the importance to the Australian economy and the environment of the introduction of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and will the minister inform the House of its progress?

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lowe for his question. I know he has a real interest in this issue. It is critical for our environment and critical for our economy that we reduce carbon pollution. This is why the Rudd government has a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in place, proposed to be dealt with by this parliament, and why we are also bringing forward complementary measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Last Friday, I addressed the National Business Leaders Forum on Sustainable Development and heard more of the leadership that Australian business and industry are showing on climate change. The message from that leadership forum is very clear: they want action on climate change and they want investment certainty for a low-carbon future. This forum was the same that produced a special call for action on climate change in 2007. The call for action was directed at the opposition, who were then in government, who were not willing to pick up the cudgels and actually take climate change seriously.

I have to say that we are heading back to the dark old days when on one side you had the climate deniers and on the other side you had the would-have-beens and the could-have-beens. The problem with the opposition is that they have nothing to say about green collar jobs. This morning, I launched the second phase program guidelines for insulation in the energy efficient homes package. That has been a classic example taking the right public policy decision to provide stimulus for the economy, which produces jobs and increases capacity for jobs and at the same time enables Australians to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and reduce their energy costs as well. Here we have already more than 100 jobs created by Bradford and Fletcher Insulation facilities, with an investment in Dandenong of some $8 million, which I reported to the House last week. This is the stimulus plan at work. But the opposition have nothing positive to say about it. They have nothing positive to say about the opportunities presented by Pacific Hydro, who last week called for the parliament to ensure passage of the carbon pollution reduction scheme.

They also have nothing to say about jobs at risk through inaction on climate change. I noticed that the opposition laughed when the Prime Minister made reference to the Great Barrier Reef and the Murray-Darling Basin. I was mystified by the opposition laughing at something which is so fair dinkum serious. For those opposite, the risks to the Great Barrier Reef are not only to the environment but also to employment. The Great Barrier Reef generates employment for around 60,000 Australians. The risks to the agricultural sector in the Murray-Darling Basin are not only about the risks to the basin because of climate change impacts—even though they are real risks, which they continue to deny—but also about risks to employment. The Murray-Darling Basin generates employment for around 90,000 Australians. This fundamental connection between protecting the environment and ensuring employment and jobs is something that the opposition just does not seem to get.

It is much harder for the Leader of the Opposition to get it when he has the Nationals in the Senate and the Nationals on the front benches here not wanting to delay the passage of the carbon pollution reduction scheme but simply wanting to oppose it. At a time when business is looking for certainty and action and when the community is looking for resolute action on addressing climate change, it is painful to watch the opposition and the opposition leader when the coalition continues to distance itself from any meaningful action, from taking climate change seriously and from supporting a carbon pollution reduction scheme. I feel some small sympathy—and I say ‘small sympathy’—for the member for Flinders.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hunt interjecting

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One thing that I am confident about is that the interjection will not have been his position on the carbon pollution reduction scheme. On 17 July last year, after the green paper was released he rushed out—as he does—and he said, ‘Basically, what they, the government, have done is dusted off the document we had.’ In other words, the line of the member for Flinders, if I understood it, was to say that the carbon pollution reduction scheme was actually their carbon pollution reduction scheme. You had better speak to the member for Wild Bay—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Wide Bay; actually, what you hear from the Nationals is wild—I stand by that. He ought to be speaking to the member for Wide Bay, because his view about the carbon pollution reduction scheme is that it is probably the harshest that is under consideration anywhere in the world. It cannot be the scheme that you were proposing and the harshest scheme anywhere in the world at the same time.

The fact is, if you want to be taken seriously on climate change, if you want to secure our environment into the future, then you need targets and you need a plan to achieve them. If you believe in something, you need to vote for it. In the absence of that belief and conviction from the Leader of the Opposition, this government will get on with the business of securing the environment and employment with a carbon pollution reduction scheme and the positive policy measures that go with it.